


Beyond Duty and Honor

by RiaJade01



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Knights of the Fallen Empire Spoilers, Wish Fulfillment, angsty fluff, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:16:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8313679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaJade01/pseuds/RiaJade01
Summary: My wishfic for Quinn and Mara's reunion in Kotet.  Because it will absolutely be in Kotet, right BioWare?  RIGHT?  I'm fine.  This is fine.





	1. Chapter 1

“Blast it, Mal. If you don’t sit down I will put you out the airlock.”

Quinn paused in his fourth circuit around the limited space of the shuttle and looked into the cockpit at his friend. Ovech was in the pilot’s seat and two aides, busy with datapads, occupied the chairs behind him. Quinn could see the tension in their shoulders despite how they tried to keep their eyes on their work. Small wonder. From their point of view he was an interloper with far too much sway over their commanding officer. 

Few officers ever resigned from the Imperial Military, and those who did were always accompanied by either extreme disgrace or Sith intervention.  Even though Quinn’s case was Sith-sponsored - backed by the new head of Mara’s house, Heulwen Thrask - Quinn knew they saw him as only a few steps above a deserter.  He would have thought the same five years ago.

Then the Terminus happened, and his entire life exploded much like the Imperial flagship. 

He knew she had survived.  Her aunts, her cousins, her apprentice, all insisted she lived.  Both High Command and the Dark Council dismissed the lot of them as mad with grief and went on about prosecuting the doomed war with Zakuul.  Given the overwhelming apathy at Mara’s disappearance and the all but foregone conclusion of the Empire’s surrender, resigning was the easiest career choice Quinn had ever made. 

Three years of searching - seedy cantinas, unsavory informants, and too many nights spent deep in a bottle of her favorite Corellian whiskey - had finally led him to Odessen. 

He had known its location for a month now; despite his desire to be with her  _ now _ , he had taken time to retrieve some of her belongings from her family and convince Ovech to offer his battle group’s might to Mara and her Alliance.  Ovech had been on the fence - desertion was a bitter pill to offer, even with the Empire in its current state of disarray - until news of the Battle of Odessen reached them. Ovech had put down the report and immediately ordered his ships into hyperspace, no further questions asked. 

Let it never be said Malavai Quinn returned to his wife empty-handed. 

That was, no doubt, why Ovech’s aides glared at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. A former officer turned puppet to a deceased Sith should not have been able to convince an Imperial colonel to desert, yet here they were. They were loyal to their commander, and wanted to take the fight to Zakuul, but they had wanted to do it as proud Imperial soldiers. 

Quinn almost felt sorry for shattering their naïveté. Still, they were good officers.  Mara would win them over. She always did. 

“Are you listening to me? You are hovering and we all want to smack you for it.”

Quinn shook himself and returned to the co-pilot’s seat. “My apologies, Colonel,” he said, taking control of their descent. 

Ovech gave him a sympathetic look. The older man had served as a witness at their wedding - stars, was that nearly ten years ago? - and knew better than anyone what the last five years had done to Quinn. Even when communicating with the Thrasks became too painful - one could only report so much failure before it became overwhelming - Ovech had been a source of support, enduring Quinn’s drunken holocalls at odd hours and even providing resources where he could. 

“No apology is necessary, Mal,” he replied. “If I were in your boots I’d probably be crawling out of my skin right about now, too.”

Ovech was correct in his assessment. Despite how much Quinn longed for this moment, his stomach was knotted with anxiety. The stress of the past five years had left its mark, both as new scars on his body and streaks of grey in his black hair. He was functionally sixteen years older than she now, not the eleven he had been. That, combined with his defection from the Empire… He was not entirely sure she would want him back. 

Ovech was still staring at him, an eyebrow raised in an expression Quinn knew well.

“Remember to say goodbye to me before she drags you off to her quarters to make up for lost time,” he said casually. “It’ll be months before we see you again. But I’m sure we’ll hear you.” 

Behind them one of the aides gasped at the impropriety. Quinn rolled his eyes even as he hoped it to be true. 

“You don’t know that, Xandir.”

The other man snorts. “Please. She’s missed you as sorely as you’ve missed her. I was right ten years ago when I told you not to cock things up with her, and I’m right now.”

A transmission from Alliance ground control, directing them to a landing pad, cut off Quinn’s retort. They broke through Odessen’s cloud cover and got their first look at the facility. Ovech whistled appreciatively. It gleamed in the waning sunlight, still new enough to shine, and it was abuzz with activity. A little ways away, trees were being cleared to make way for new construction of some kind or another. 

“She built this from nothing,” Ovech said, awed. “With her own hands, if the rumor is true.”

“It sounds like her,” Quinn says absently. He set the shuttle down on the landing pad as memories of past campaigns flash through his mind. He had seen his wife inspire her troops before, partaking in their labor and listening to their concerns. The Empire had erred grievously in refusing to aid in her rescue. 

A Bothan wearing a Republic uniform greeted them at the bottom of the shuttle’s ramp, introducing himself as Admiral Aygo.

“I understand you brought an entire battle group with you,” he said, offering Ovech a salute.  “Can’t say we’ve ever had a single unit this large join up at once, so the logistics may be tricky.  Still, we’re happy to have you.  Please,” he gestured toward a door into the facility.  “I’ll introduce you to the senior staff and get working on integrating your group with the rest of our force.”

“I do hope the Commander will be pleased,” Ovech said, shooting a glance at Quinn.

Aygo snorted.  “Pleased?  Given the resources you brought with you, Colonel, I think she may throw you a party.  Hell, I might throw you a party.”  

He activated the controls on a lift and they descended into the bowels of the facility.  Aygo talked as the lift moved.  “Normally the Commander insists on meeting new command staff in person, but she’s on a mission.  I know she’ll want to meet with you when she gets back.”

“When will that be?” Quinn demanded, disappointment filling him.

Aygo fixed him with a steely glare.  “The Commander’s mission timetables are need-to-know only.” He ostentatiously looked Quinn up and down, noting the lack of rank insignia, “mister…?”

The lift halted.

“Malavai Quinn.”

To his credit, Aygo’s eyes only widened a fraction, but Quinn could see the recognition of his name, if nothing else.  It cheered him somewhat; it meant she’d been looking for him.

Aygo turned and called across the room, “Agent Shan, we found him.”

Quinn stiffened and cursed under his breath before he could stop himself.  This was already not going how he’d hoped, and now to add Theron kriffing Shan to the mix… he closed his eyes, forcing his face back to a neutral expression.  Ovech was staring at him; Quinn shook his head minutely.  He was in no mood to explain to his friend about his connection to the Republic spy.

On the other side of the room - which was huge and packed with state-of-the-art sensor and communications equipment - Agent Shan looked up from a console.  Quinn could not make out his face, though his silhouette indicated he still wore that infuriating red jacket, but there was no mistaking the relief in Shan’s voice as he walked toward Aygo.  The admiral was between them, obscuring Quinn from Shan’s view.

“What, how?  I need you to be sure, Admiral, before I take this to her.”

“Maybe the better way to put it is, he found us.”  

Aygo stepped aside and motioned toward Quinn.  Shan stopped short.

“How did you-” He stopped and shook his head. “You’re a damn hard man to find, Captain.”

“Just Quinn now,” Quinn responded, motioning to his civilian clothing and the very much  _ not _ regulation blaster strapped to his hip.

Shan nodded.  “We knew that much.  Wish you’d left a note or something; Lana started looking for you months before we were ready to mount a rescue.  Lady Thrask said they hadn’t heard from you in nearly a year.”

Quinn grimaced.  “For once I agree with you, Agent Shan.  But I am here now.  Where is my wife?’

Apparently Quinn’s connection to Mara was enough to grant him and Ovech clearance to know her mission schedule, for Shan motioned them toward a holoprojector and pulled up a schematic.

Ovech gaped.  “She’s attacking a star fortress?”

“At Belsavis,” Shan confirmed.  “We’ve been working on taking them out one-by-one for a little over a month now.  This is the sixth.”

“That was all her?” Ovech’s voice was soft with astonishment.  “We’d heard about worlds being liberated from these things, but I always assumed it was multiple teams…”  He glanced at Quinn.  “You aren’t the slightest bit surprised, are you Mal?”

Quinn hadn’t even tried to hide his proud smile as he studied the schematic. “Of course not.  This makes perfect sense, actually.  Small strike teams have always been her strength.”

“Exactly,” Shan said, shooting a glance at Quinn.  “It turns out a small group, running light, can infiltrate them pretty easily.  Arcann armed these against assault by capital ships, not a single very pissed off Sith and a few of her deadliest friends.  And they’ve only gotten easier to hit since she beat the hell out of Arcann and sent him packing.”

Shan turned and offered a hand to Ovech.  “Agent Theron Shan, formerly of the SIS.  I worked with the Commander and Quinn during the Revan fiasco.  I’m in charge of Alliance operations.  For now at least,” he added, his gaze shifting to Quinn before settling on Aygo.  “Admiral, why don’t you take the Colonel and get started with the force integration.  Quinn and I need to talk.”

As the silence stretched between them, Quinn found himself hating the younger man, perhaps more than he ever had.  He was glad Mara had allies to pull her out of carbon freeze and care for her in the aftermath, he reminded himself sternly.  He tried not to question the extent of that care where the former spy was concerned, or linger on the comparison of his own scarred, aging face with that of Agent Shan.  That short-lived affair was over long before she disappeared, and the rational part of him knew she would not take it up again.  But he hated Shan for being there when Quinn could not.  And Quinn hated himself even more for failing her.

Abruptly Quinn noticed the tension in Shan’s posture, and the fact that the younger man had been working for several moments to speak.

“Something is wrong,” Quinn said, his heart thumping against his chest.

“Yes.” Shan scrubbed his hands through his disheveled hair. “No.”  He sighed.  “On the surface she’s fine.  She’s… herself. You know how she works, woman of the people, keeps all of us from squabbling.  But…” he trailed off and fixed Quinn with an earnest, relieved look.  “It’s good you’re here.” He said simply.

“I need more than that from you, Agent Shan.”

Shan sighed again and opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by the comm beeping.  He checked the display and pressed his lips into a thin line.

“That’s the  _ Fury _ ,” he muttered, surprise and a hint of worry in his voice.  “They’re ahead of schedule.”  He activated the comm.

Quinn jerked back several steps, out of the holo’s visual range, unsure if he wanted their first interaction to be over holo with an audience.  The question was moot, however; Lana’s face appeared instead of his wife’s.

“We just passed the outer picket, Theron.  We will land in fifteen minutes.”

“Everything okay?  You’re a few days early.”

“We’re fine,” Lana grumbled.  “You can thank the Commander for our swiftness.  We can also inform the medical community that there is one positive side effect of stimulant abuse in Sith: all that nervous energy is funnelled straight into their Force connection.”

Shan grimaced and glanced at Quinn.  “The nightmares came back, I take it?”

“Yes.  It’s worse on the  _ Fury _ , which she did not tell me until after we left.  After the first two nights went poorly she stopped even pretending to sleep and refused to let me help.  I’ve been with her for the past ten days and even I don’t know how she functions like this.”

“I’m surprised she’s not the one reporting in.”

Lana smirked and rubbed her cheek.  “With the mission complete I… forced the issue.  She’s in her quarters now.” Now that she’d called attention to it, Quinn could see a bruise forming on Lana’s face.  Clearly Mara had not gone down willingly.

“What did you do?”  Quinn burst out, stepping into visual range of the holo. 

Lana’s mouth dropped open, but she recovered quickly.

“Oh, thank the Force.  Where the hell have you been? 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Quinn is rather appalled at how little support the Alliance has given his wife since her return to the galaxy.

Twenty minutes later, Quinn stood in the common area of the  _ Fury _ for the first time in nearly five years.  Fortunately for him and his ability to function, the smells and sounds were all wrong enough to keep the flood of memories at bay.  He had not pressed Agent Shan too hard on where the SIS agent had found the  _ Fury _ ; the younger man had simply shrugged and indicated he may have made some new Sith enemies in the transaction.  Wherever he’d found it, the ship’s most recent caretakers had scrubbed it clean of anything familiar.

He and Lana were alone - as Quinn strode up the ramp, a rucksack on his shoulder, two Republic soldiers bearing Havoc Squad insignias debarked - and they stood outside of Mara’s quarters, Quinn glaring at Lana.

“I did no damage, Captai-” She pursed her lips. “Quinn, I did what was necessary.  I simply triggered her body’s own will for sleep, as she has asked me to do on several prior occasions.  The fact that I could get past her mental shielding at all is proof of how necessary this was.”

“I will examine her to be sure,” he replied curtly, stalking into the medbay to retrieve a scanner.  He was angry on Mara’s behalf that Lana violated her boundaries in this way, and angry on his own behalf that his first glimpse of her in five years would be her unconscious form.  

“Of course.  When you have finished, though, I must speak with you.  There are things you should know.”

Quinn’s stomach dropped at her tone, but he nodded.  Gathering his courage, he keyed the door open and stepped inside.  

It was abundantly clear to him immediately why this room triggered his wife’s nightmares.  The first thing that hit him was the smell.  Or rather, the complete lack thereof.  The room had been completely sterilized.  Indeed, “sterile” was the only adjective he could summon to describe the room that had once been their private retreat.  No smell, no warmth, nothing personal anywhere.  It was uncanny to the point of revulsion.

He swallowed and let his eyes fall to the bed, to the achingly familiar and sorely missed form sprawled across it.  His vision blurred with tears and the pain of missing her, which he thought had reached its apex long ago, blossomed in his chest anew.  He was suddenly thankful she was unconscious and could not see how he approached her in slow steps, tears dripping inexorably down his cheeks.

She was lying on her back, diagonal across the bed, still wearing her utility belt and boots.  Her lightsaber - he assumed it was hers, though it was a weapon he had never seen before - was pressed awkwardly between her hip and the mattress.  Lana had thought to remove the generator from her back before depositing Mara on the bed, but otherwise her bedside manner left much to be desired.  

Mara was clothed in the exact same armor she had worn that day on the Terminus, a fact that was both reassuringly familiar and disorienting.  His gaze traveled up to her face, one hand tracing the scar on his own face unconsciously as he did so.  She had not aged a day.  Her hair was the only thing about her that indicated a passage of time: it had been cut short, ending just past her chin.  He sank onto the mattress next to her and reached out a tentative hand to brush his fingertips through her hair.  He closed his eyes, a quiet sob escaping him despite his best efforts.  Stars, she was real and here and whole.  

He stroked her hair more deeply, combing it away from her face with his fingers, smiling weakly even as he continued to weep.  Mara stirred slightly, her head rubbing against his palm as she did so.  He pulled away hurriedly, unwilling to wake her, remembering the scanner in his other hand.   _ Focus, Malavai _ , he scolded himself, activating  the scanner. Focusing on the task at hand helped quiet the turmoil he felt at seeing her again. 

After several duplicative scans and ten minutes of glaring at the instrument, he was satisfied that she was indeed asleep - more deeply than was typical, but not dangerously so.  He also could not help noting healed injuries that were new to him, including two particularly nasty scars, one on her lower abdomen, and the other on her back.

Putting the scanner aside, he stood and eased her slightly onto her side to remove her lightsaber, then let her settle back into the mattress and unbuckled her utility belt.  She was lighter than he remembered, he noted as he slid an arm beneath her waist to lift her and pull the belt out from under her.  Her gloves and boots were easier to remove, although the muscle memory of doing so invoked a host of memories.  He briefly considered removing her armor fully before dismissing the idea as presumptuous after five years apart.  

Instead, he worked to make her as comfortable as possible.  He leaned down and gathered her in both arms, straightening her and shifting her body up toward the head of the bed.  He cradled her head in one arm as he arranged her pillows how he knew she liked them, dropping a kiss on the top of her head without thinking.  She stirred again in her sleep as he settled her head on the pillows, and what looked like a ghost of a smile flashed across her face so quickly he was sure he imagined it.  

With his face so close to hers, the scent of her filled his nostrils.  Only force of will kept him from breaking down again.  He took a deep breath, inhaling her but also steadying himself.

“I’m here, my love,” he whispered.  “I’m so sorry it took me this long.”

He straightened and brushed his hand across her forehead one last time, reassuring himself she was still real, before returning to the common area.  Lana was seated next to the djarik table.  Quinn spoke before he had traversed the full distance between them.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

“I suppose I should start with the carbonite poisoning,” Lana said.

“I thought that might be a possibility,” he said.  “Did she say anything about what she experienced when she was in stasis?”

Lana shook her head.  “Never in any detail.  I gather she dreamed, and the dreams were often unpleasant.  But no more than that.  She is more circumspect, since coming out of the carbonite.  I am hoping she will confide in you where she did not with me.”

“If you are expecting me to share that confidence with you or anyone else, Lana, you will be sorely disappointed.”  

_ May as well set that rule now _ , he thought.

“Not at all,” she assured him.  “I merely hope confiding in you will help her heal.”

Quinn nodded.  “Were there any complications from the carbonite poisoning?” He had read up on the condition on his way to Odessen; any number of side effects, including some affecting mental acuity, could be permanent.

“None that we have observed.  No, the nightmares and her anxiety… those have a different source, Quinn.”  She took a deep breath.  “It seems that, when she killed Emperor Valkorion, his essence… stayed with her.  He is a near-constant presence in her head so far as we can tell.”

Quinn gaped, sure his heart ceased beating for several seconds.  “How... how do you know?  Any erratic behavior could be evidence of lasting damage from the carbonite poisoning.”  He cursed himself as he realized he was hoping for the latter explanation.

“I can feel him in her,” Lana said quietly. “There are two distinct entities in her sense; hers and… something else.  He also seems to deepen her connection to the Force.  He has strengthened her considerably.”

Quinn swallowed.  “Can he take control?” His mind was filled with images of Ziost, soldiers turning on one another rabidly, their eyes seething with the dark side and the Emperor’s power.

Lana paused, her yellow eyes searching his. “Not complete control, but yes, he has exhibited some ability to affect her physical body.  Mara was injured by Arcann a couple of weeks after we rescued her.  It should have been fatal. Somehow Valkorion kept her alive and functioning so she could get back to the ship.  He must have healed her, too, for her injury was far beyond the equipment we had access to at the time.”

Quinn’s mind leapt to the scars he noted earlier, his stomach twisting as he realized what an entry and exit wound meant when inflicted by a lightsaber.  He closed his eyes, trying to process everything he’d just heard.

“There is more.”

_ More?   _ He opened his eyes and focused on Lana.

“She disappeared for two days.  Valkorian took enough control to walk her into the wilderness and leave her unconscious.  Apparently a punishment, and a test of her strength.”

Quinn rubbed his temples wearily.

“What does he want from her?”

“I don’t know.  Revenge against his children? A new warm body on the Eternal Throne that is fully in his control?  I don’t think even Mara is positive of his motivation.  We are working on finding a way to separate them.  But I will warn you that we are not making good headway on that.  We still don’t know if it’s even possible to separate them without killing her.”

Quinn slumped in his seat, considering.  The thought of the Emperor using Mara’s body as a… vessel… turned his stomach.  Indeed, he was nearly vibrating with fury.  But he was also hopeful whatever chance she had of coming through this whole was improved if they faced it together.

“Thank you, Lana.” He said, finally.  “Is there anything else I need to know?”

Lana shook her head and rose to leave.

“How long has she been struggling like this - the nightmares, the anxiety, and so on?”

Lana sighed, not quite meeting his gaze.  “We… I didn’t notice until a month had passed.  She’d stopped sleeping and was jumping at shadows thanks to the stimulants she used to stay awake.  I offered to assist.  She consented.  The cycle repeated a couple of times before today.  I should have seen it before it got so bad.  But she, as I said, has closed herself off.  She lied to me about Valkorion the first time I asked.”

Quinn clenched his jaw.  He was beginning to see why everyone he interacted with in the base - well, anyone who could correctly identify him - sagged with visible relief that he had arrived.  They rescued her, yes, something for which Quinn would be grateful for the rest of his days.  But that rescue had come with conditions.  Mara had met her side of the bargain as far as Quinn saw it, building a successful resistance force out of nothing and vanquishing Arcann, but no one had offered her anything approaching adequate support in return.

He shook his head and turned the full force of his glare on Lana.  “She was separated from her family, slowly poisoned over five years, and carries a dead emperor in her skull, yet none of you thought she could possibly require assistance while fighting this war for you?”

Lana did not flinch from his gaze.  “That is why I wanted you here, Quinn.  To be what we cannot.  Vette’s return has helped in some respects, but… she needs you.”

“So it would seem,” he replied coldly.  

It galled him that these people used her gifts for their own ends and then allowed her to suffer on the assumption that he was the only person who could help.  It wasn’t a certainty that she would even want him back, let alone need him to help her cope with all she had endured.  He would help her in any way he could; in any way she allowed.  That was not a question.  But they hadn’t even tried, apparently.    

Lana smiled gently, apparently reading something of his insecurity and determination in his sense.

“I know we have not been enough support for her.  But I truly believe she has been waiting for you before dealing with everything that is plaguing her.  At any rate, I will let you get back to her.  She should be able to sleep through the night, and possibly most of tomorrow.  I will have provisions brought over from the base.”

With that, Lana turned and left the ship.  Quinn waited until he could not hear her footsteps before rising and returning to the bedroom, picking up his rucksack from the floor on the way. He removed his boots, blaster belt and jacket before walking to the bed, a datapad in one hand, to check on Mara.  She had not moved since he left her; still on her back, nearly in the center of the mattress.

He sat down on the bed and, unable to stop himself, trailed his hand down her arm, closing his eyes against the tears that threatened to return.  He jerked in surprise when, as their hands touched, her hand curled firmly around his.  His eyes flew open and he focused on her face, but it was relaxed, her breathing unchanged.  Quinn stared blankly at their entwined hands for several seconds before settling back against the headboard.

He keyed the datapad on with his free hand and pulled up a report Ovech had sent regarding the proposed integration of his battle group with Alliance forces.  After four tries at reading the first paragraph, however, he was forced to admit defeat.  He laid the datapad on the side table, relaxed deeper into the mattress and closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her presence next to him and the soft sound of her breath.  Immersed in the proof of her existence, he dozed off in very short order.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara wakes to a pleasant surprise, for a change.

Mara woke slowly, as was her wont with sleep induced by the Force. Lana had done this to her a few times over the last two months, when sleeplessness and nightmares had brought her to the brink. But never against her will. With rest, Mara could see Lana’s good intentions - both from a pragmatic and from a friendship perspective. However the rest of her, the parts that shuddered at the thought of Valkorion invading her mind, at Arcann displaying her person like a trophy… Those parts of her fervently hoped the blow she managed to land on Lana’s face left some lingering damage. She would have to speak to the woman about how to handle this in the future.

Still, the sleep had been restorative and, oddly, filled with quiet, pleasant dreams she could not quite remember. Usually the sleep Lana induced was fully dreamless, hence the appeal. Even now, as she hovered in that grey space between asleep and awake, the dreams left an afterglow that acted as a warm balm to her mind. She resented having to rise and face the mountain of work and responsibility waiting for her, wanting instead to bask in this pleasantness as long as it lasted.

Yes, she decided. The Alliance could do without her for a few hours. She snuggled closer against Malavai’s side, idly wondering if she should wake him up to take different advantage of those hours-

Mara jolted awake, her eyes snapping open. Thinking his name shattered the sleep-induced fog around her brain. She forced her eyes to focus and realized her face was pressed against a white sleeve. The hand attached to that arm was interlaced with hers. And it smelled, impossibly, of leather and wood smoke and a Dromund Kaas forest after rain. She had never quite been able to determine if he actually smelled of these things or if his sense triggered those smells in her mind when she felt him.

She sat up on her elbow, gripping his hand tightly as an anchor, praying with every fiber of her being that this was real and not some hallucination or vision or other trick of Valkorion’s. If it was, she truly feared she would not be able to cope. But the parasitic entity in her mind was silent, his essence vague. The sense of the man beside her was a different story altogether. Even in sleep it pulsed with relief and contentment. She sat up fully, her legs curled beneath her, to get a look at him.

Malavai was wearing civilian clothing, rougher than anything she’d ever seen him wear before. That alone reassured her she was not hallucinating; it would never have occurred to her to picture her husband in dark spacer pants and a rough-knit, long-sleeved shirt, a tiny bit of chest hair peeking out of the unbuttoned neck.

And his face… Her heart clenched. New lines had formed and others deepened, especially between his brows and around his eyes, as if he had spent the last five years frowning intently. A scar crossed his face from left temple to the right side of his jaw. His thick hair, still parted in the same spot, was still predominately black but was speckled throughout with grey with a heavier concentration at his temples. He was older, and still striking enough to leave her breathless.

The obvious marks left by the war revived the guilt that she slept - poorly, dying, plagued by a megalomaniac ghost, but still slept - while everyone she loved endured a war worse than anything the Republic had ever thrown at them.

Tentative, she laid a hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing and, reaching slightly with the Force, the beat of his heart against her palm.

He had been there all night, she realized belatedly. What she had felt as she slept was his sense sliding into place in her mind, so familiar and comforting and right that she had forgotten its aching lack when she first woke.

She was crying. It had started when she sat up, a silent trail of tears on her cheeks. But now her face contorted with silent sobs until her cheeks hurt. She tried to school herself back to calm, or at least will her face to relax, to no avail. Her mind raced with scenarios to wake him up - a caress of his cheek, a witty remark about his tardiness, bantering sex to follow. She had fantasized about this in every spare moment she’d had over the past three months, and in plenty of moments her mind should have been occupied with Alliance business.

But now, with him here and solid and real, all she could manage to do was cry on him.

Mara’s hand curled into a fist on his chest, still gripping his shirt. The heaving sobs that wracked her body were no longer silent, gaining in volume. Inevitably, he startled awake, his blue eyes searching the room for a heartbeat as if he had forgotten where he was. And then, with his usual precision, he focused on her.

“Malavai,” she gasped raggedly, tugging weakly at the front of his shirt.

Her voice was pitched higher than she’d ever heard it. She hoped he would understand the need behind that one word, that tiny movement, because she was not capable of anything else.

And then he was there, sitting up in front of her and gently extracting his hand from hers and wrapping both arms around her. She melted against him, her arms going around his middle and holding him as tightly as she could. His heart beat in her ear and his scent and warmth enveloped her. Surrounded by him, the pain of his absence, easily remembered, was thrown into stark relief, twisting in her guts like a knife. She cried out and tried to press herself against him harder.

Malavai was using one hand to stroke her hair and back soothingly, but Mara could feel his tears trickling into her hair and the shudder of his body as he, too, was overwhelmed with emotion. She twined her fingers in his hair and nuzzled his neck with her wet face. They stayed like that for an unknown length of time - minutes, hours, she couldn’t tell - wrapped awkwardly together with shaking arms.

Finally, Mara sniffled and shifted to alleviate the stiffness building in her legs. She pulled back slightly, cradling his cheek with one hand and running the other through his hair. She stared into his eyes - she had forgotten their exact shade of blue - and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. There were too many words, too many things she needed him to know. If she could speak it all at once - upload it in a neat data package - she would, but trapped as she was with linear speech, she was at a loss.

“I forgot how beautiful you are,” he said.

“Same,” she replied.

His lip twisted slightly. “I am not what you remember,” he said bitterly.

“I have had nothing but memories since I was rescued, Malavai. This is infinitely better.” She traced his features with her fingertips, his dark eyebrows, the slope of his nose, and finally his lips, committing everything to memory. He froze when she touched the scar on his face. She traced it gently. “Who gave you this?”

“A skytrooper,” he said, closing his eyes against the memory. “I was serving aboard the Dauntless and we were attacked and boarded. We held the bridge long enough to bring the hyperdrive back online and escape, but it was a near thing.”

Mara’s throat closed. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes and looked at her in confusion. “For what?”

“For this,” she touched the scar again. “For the war. For the years we have lost. For… For everything.” Her voice rose, guilt and frustration bubbling out of her. “I couldn’t stop any of this. I have made so many stupid mistakes since they brought me back. And I have this great kriffing…” She trailed off, her hand on either side of her head, afraid that naming the thing in her head would summon it. She forced her gaze back to Malavai’s face. “I am not what you remember, either.”

He took her hands in his gently, scooting back into a sitting position against the headboard. He pulled her with him until she was nestled against him, their legs a tangle, his arm around her, stroking and soothing her gently.

“I should have kept in touch better,” he said bitterly. “Lana went to Heulwen to locate me when they were ready to rescue you. I… hadn’t checked with her in nearly a year. It hurt too much, reporting failure after failure, seeing our home without you in it, seeing your cousin’s disappointment. Compared to what you have endured… I was weak.”

Mara looked up at him. “You spent five miserable years looking for me. I’m a mess after three months. You have strength I do not, Malavai.”

“Shall we spend the next five years arguing the point, darling?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice.

She couldn't help but smile in return. “So long as it’s in person, gladly.”

She let her head rest against him and they sat in contented silence together, Malavai stroking her hair. It was soothing, but she could also feel a mutual tension between them. After a few minutes she pulled away from him, shifting so she was facing him. She took his hands in hers.

“Malavai, do you wish to stay with me?”

He cocked his head at her. “Of course, I will do everything possible to help you and the Alliance.”

“No, I mean with me,” she said, inexplicably unable to speak the words plainly. She was nervous, she realized. “I mean us, together, married.”

His face softened. “Darling, I want that more than anything.”

Mara smiled, relieved. “I thought it prudent to ask, given the amount of time that has gone by. And the visitor in my head.”

Malavai stroked her cheek. “I will not leave you to him,” he said fervently, his voice shaking slightly.. “We will find a way to evict him.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said quietly. She had more to ask of him on that subject, but did not want to spoil the moment by speaking of darker things.

“And you wish to stay with me?” He asked.

“You truly think I wouldn’t?” she countered.

He did not reply, but she could feel his insecurity. She shook her head and rose onto her knees.

“May I?” She asked, one hand on his shoulder for balance. When he nodded she settled into his lap, a knee on either side of his hips. She laced her fingers behind his neck and looked him in the eye. “I swore to love you for the rest of my days, Malavai Quinn. All of them, including the ones where we are both old and grey and cranky, which I will point out are still far off for both of us. You, my love, are stuck with me.”

“Besides, you make it easy when you wear it so well,” she said with a smile, running her hands through his hair. “You look rather dangerous, dear.”

The tension had slowly drained out of him as she spoke and he was sliding his fingertips lightly up and down her back, on either side of her spine.

“Thank you for that,” he said. “After all this time, I needed to hear it.” His voice turned playful and he nuzzled her cheek with his. “Was that a yes, Lady Thrask?”

Her breath caught as their skin touched. “It was, Husband,” she replied. She pulled back so she could look into his eyes once more. “I am going to kiss you, Malavai.”

He smiled and leaned toward her until their noses touched. “Please,” he whispered, his breath caressing her lips.

One thing that had surprised Mara in her life since being rescued was how easy it was to forget that five years had passed while she laid in stasis. So many things were different, but her last memories of her husband, her family, her crew, felt only days, weeks old at most.

But when Malavai’s lips met hers and her entire body shuddered in response, she suddenly felt every single one of the five years that had passed since she’d last kissed him, since she’d felt his skin against hers and felt him inside her. The little bit of her skin that was exposed was suddenly charged, and his touch sent currents of tingling pleasure through her body. What she had thought would be a slow, sweet kiss rapidly turned into something else as she moaned into his mouth and pulled him against her, trying to choose between touching him and getting her armor off as quickly as possible. She was a woman dying of thirst trying to ingest an ocean all at once.

She broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against his, panting. Everything about him was so familiar, and yet… five years apart and subtle changes in his body made him feel completely new and unexplored. And oh, stars, she wanted to explore every centimeter of him. He pulled away from her, cradling her face with both hands as he stared at her in wonder, as if he’d never seen her before, and she could feel his hunger for her.

“Oh, Malavai,” she purred, nuzzling him and brushing her lips against his teasingly. “This is going to be fun.”


End file.
